How long does it take to read Life and Death in Shanghai?
Nien Cheng
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng takes about 10 hours 2 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 2 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1986. 547 pages, about 150,425 words.
21 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 16 hours 43 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 2 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 16 minutes |
The page count is the median across 14 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In August 1966 a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-shek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts that few of her compatriots could afford. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years. Life and Death in Shanghai is the powerful story of Nien Cheng's imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. It is the story, too, of a country torn apart by the savage fight for power Mao Tse-tung launched in his campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, rare personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, Life and Death in Shanghai is also an astounding portrait of one woman's courage.
Subjects: Biography, History, Personal narratives, Political prisoners, China, biography, Political prisoners, china
